Tallahassee Writers Association – Book Review of Another Door, by Eileen Sperl-Hawkins, Reviewed by Robert Douglas

Another Door gives us a sensitive perspective on what is a coarse reality in the lives of so many of us today: Cancer.

Or more precisely, it gives us a more expansive view in which those who have the disease can be defined by more than their potentially fatal condition.

In this, her second collection of poems, Eileen Sperl-Hawkins, gives voice to patients who are rightly fearful on their journey to recovery or beyond; but who, at the same time, take joy in other facets of their lives.

The poet puts us before the “altar” in the treatment room where, “vulnerable, skin exposed,” you brace yourself for the lasers that target tumors hidden inside your body. She takes us through treatment aftereffects that cause nausea – “this thorn in my day.”

But along the way she has a survivor take time to contemplate a favorite pine tree, “framing through evergreen fingers the distant world” where clouds, breezes and mockingbirds abound.

Throughout, the collection is rich with images of landscapes where plants and wildlife endure the sometimes erratic forces of nature — fitting metaphors to express the experiences of someone hoping to survive the storm of disease.

The poet doesn’t restrict her chronicle to probing the physical and emotional impacts of only cancer treatment. She also writes of open heart surgery and shares her own insights on what it’s like to suffer the bodily abuse of medical procedures in hopes of recovering. She deftly describes the fear of going through a test — “Moisture pools in my eye sockets blurring my vision of the bleeping lines on the monitors.”

But the focus of the collection is cancer. It was inspired by an unexpected epiphany Sperl-Hawkins had approaching a door to a cancer treatment room at the Tallahassee Memorial Cancer Center where her husband works as a medical physicist. She was paying a routine visit. As they chatted, he walked into a nearby treatment room to check on some equipment. She followed him as she had on many previous visits. But this time she stopped before entering. When she proceeded, she went though the door and saw things as a new cancer patient would see them. Early the next morning she started work on what would become Another Door, which is dedicated to all cancer patients, survivors and those who love and care for them on their journey.

It’s truly an inspired work.

If you’ve been touched by cancer or just want some insight into how it feels to cope, I recommend you read Another Door. Better yet, read it aloud to someone who needs to know you understand and care.

Meet the author; help a cause

Eileen Sperl-Hawkins will sign copies of Another Door on Saturday, March 16, at a cancer support group fundraiser beginning at 7 p.m., at St. Louis Catholic Church Parish Hall, 3640 Fred George Road, Tallahassee, Florida 32303.

Sponsored by the Sisterhood of St. Louis Catholic Church, donations and half of the author’s $10-a-copy book proceeds will go to support TMH Cancer Support Groups. Sperl-Hawkins wrote Another Door while serving as Poet-in-Residence at the Tallahassee Memorial Cancer Center.

Robert Douglas, a former business editor and columnist for The Palm Beach Post and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, is a member of the Tallahassee Writers’ Association.

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About The Author

The mission of Tallahassee Writers Association (TWA) is to support the literary arts by offering professional and novice writers education, connection, and encouragement. TWA's membership is filled with novelists, creative nonfiction authors, poets, children's authors, screenwriters, playwrights, journalists, and those who want to exercise their creative talents using the written word. TWA is a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3). For more information about the Tallahassee Writers Association, and to learn about activities provided members as well as our annual conference, please visit our website at www.twaonline.org. TWA meets 6:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month at the American Legion on Lake Ella.